Early on in what is now their two-season tenure together, Knicks center Tyson Chandler approached star forward Carmelo Anthony and told him that, if he wanted to achieve some modicum of success in New York, he was going to have to put in considerably more work on the defensive end. Chandler had some cachet behind him, too, having won a championship with the Mavericks in 2011. But working on the defensive end has never really been Anthony’s thing, but Chandler knew that would have to change.

“I let him know that if you want to accomplish what I know you want to accomplish, we got to do it at both ends,” Chandler said. “I am here to lean on him offensively, and he knows he can lean on me defensively, but we have got to do it together.”

Back when the Knicks were the best team in the Eastern Conference, sitting with an 18-5 record, it seemed that message was getting through. The Knicks were playing very good defense to open the year, and for the first month of the season, they yielded an average of just 94.4 points. But since then the Knicks have been an absolutely average team, going 15-15. And it might just be time for Chandler to have another talk with Anthony, because lately, Anthony—and the Knicks as a whole—have been pretty awful on the defensive end.

The Knicks did get a reprieve on Sunday, when they beat Philadelphia by a 99-93 count. Even that, though, should come with a caveat—the Sixers are the 29th-ranked team in points scored, and the 93 they scored on the Knicks was their best output since January 28.

Before that? Well, look out. The Knicks had lost five of six games, and in doing so, yielded an average of 103.2 points per game, including 125 to Indiana in their first game after the All-Star break.

Not that the Knicks offense has been running smoothly lately, but the real hope for this team coming into the year was the possibility of building on the defensive improvement they showed last year, especially after coach Mike Woodson took over for Mike D’Antoni.

Whatever gains the Knicks made, they are giving back. The Knicks jumped from 22nd to fifth in defensive efficiency last year, but they’re back down to 18th in the league this year.

Chandler knows, ultimately, that his role is to keep the defense poised and active. “It’s a big responsibility,” Chandler said. “I know that every night I have to get with my team and make sure that we are prepared for our opponents. Also, I know there are no nights off for me. Because my team thrives off my energy. If there is not enough energy from me, it is not a good night for my team.”

There hasn’t been enough energy lately, not on the defensive end.

Against the Sixers, Woodson attempted to juggle the rotation to give the Knicks a different look, resting Chandler a little earlier in the first quarter so that he can use Chandler with the second unit in the second quarter. The hope is that the defense doesn’t utterly collapse when Chandler is not on the floor in the first quarter, and that he can give the reserves a defensive backbone in the second.

It worked on Sunday, and Woodson might continue to make changes to how he uses Chandler. He should. As much as the Knicks are, for public consumption, Anthony’s team, they probably will only go as far in the playoffs as Chandler can push them, defensively.

Not that Chandler expects much credit for that. It was only this year, his 12th, that Chandler finally earned an All-Star spot for the first time, after all, something that he had begun to give up on. “There were definitely plenty of years where I felt like, ‘Man, I really thought this was the year,’” Chandler said. “It was definitely disappointing. I thought maybe the way I play is not necessarily getting recognized.

"But one thing I wasn’t willing to do, I wasn’t willing to sacrifice the type of player that I am and what I stand for as a player. Some people look at it like I am inconsistent, because one night I have 20 points and one night I have eight and then 15. I don’t look at it like that. I look at it like, I am consistent because every night I am going to give you everything I got, I am going to play defense, I am going to rebound the ball. Sometimes people are just looking at the wrong stats.”

In the end, Chandler sizes himself up by wins and losses. And that’s got to be his concern now. The Knicks are struggling, particularly on the defensive end. Chandler has taken the responsibility for that—the fix will have to start with him.